Plaster & Disaster

On Monday, I was thrilled to finally have a craft to share with you all – a vase that I made out of cement and test tubes!

I gave a pretty tra-la-la tutorial of how I did it. I mentioned with nonchalant confidence how I propped my mold up between two bricks to help it maintain its shape, and how I used watery cement to get a nice fill. What I didn’t tell you is that this craft only worked out on my second attempt. The first one was a total disaster!

I started out with high hopes for this project. I assembled my supplies, mixed some thick cement, stuffed it into my mold, and stuck in the test tubes.

I pretty quickly noticed that the edges were bowing out. Cement is more powerful than a Raisin Bran box, I guess. However, I wasn’t alarmed and just shoved two bricks on either side to push the edges back into place. I was so confident that I took a hipster photo showing my toes and my brilliant plan:

Looks pretty good, right? I was pretty excited to take the mold off and see what I had created.

Womp womp. There were holes/pits all over it, and the sides were totally uneven. I had used such thick cement that it hadn’t filled into the mold evenly, even though I tapped the sides and jiggled it to try to release the air pockets.

Then, because the cement was so thick, when I pushed the sides together with the bricks to straighten them back out it pushed it around to dry unevenly. Some of the charm of cement is having a little bit of variation in finish and shape, but this was overdoing it because it looked obviously sloppy.

I also hadn’t noticed until it dried that the labels on the test tubes weren’t lined up. It just looked really badly done.

I was frustrated, but I resolved to ~~throw a tantrum~~ try this one again, because I am a resilient adult. Fortunately, the cement wasn’t fully dry yet, so I was able to break apart the vase and chip the cement away from the test tubes with a hammer and awl.

When I went to do the project again, I had learned a couple of (pretty obvious) things:

For a small project like this, use a more watery cement mixture to fill the mold without leaving air pockets behind.
If the mold is made of something weak like cardboard, reinforce it before filling – especially with quick drying and thickly mixed cement.
Pay attention to all the details before it dries. There is no re-setting cement!

Ultimately, I am more proud and happy with my final product because I had to take the time to learn from my own mistakes and re-do it. I also think it is good to share these sorts of stories, because crafts often don’t go as planned!

Have you had to re-do any crafts or projects because they didn’t work out?

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I was going to spend this past weekend working on baseboards and other small “finishing touch” projects in the kitchen and sunroom, but then I thought “that sounds boring and plus I’m nowhere near finished so why would I be working on finishing touches?” So I listened to my heart and built a giant bench.

One of the biggest reasons we tore down the wall between the kitchen and sunroom is that the sunroom is so nice to be in with all the light it gets and yet we rarely spent time there because it was so closed off from the rest of the house. And even though we’ve been loving having more light in our kitchen now that it’s opened up, we still haven’t been spending much time in the sunroom because now it’s our dining room and we mostly eat in the living room anyway unless we have company. However, I have planned all along to build a long bench against one of the walls that would make for a nice place to relax, read, blog, or nap (if I ever had time to nap) — and so I decided it was high time I got to work on said bench while it’s still summertime and we can enjoy the long hours of daylight streaming into the space.

The plan was to build it along the back wall in this photo so that when we’re using the table it serves as seating and when we’re not using the table we have a nice long bench to lounge on.

I spent a lot of time looking for inspiration, and found myself drawn to a more raw wood/rustic look. I think that works best in a space like ours that has “quirky imperfections” — something too polished and upscale just wouldn’t work in our house.

Top Row: Both from the amazing home of designer Vanessa Alexander via My Domaine | Bottom left: Apartment Therapy | Bottom right: My Domaine

Ultimately I designed my own plan drawing on these for inspiration but making it fit the unique circumstances of our space. It needed to be more of a floating style than fully built in because I didn’t want to close in the radiator along the wall, but it’s almost 12′ long (139.5″ to be exact), so it couldn’t be fully floating — it definitely needed a few feet to support it.

Because I was going for a more raw look, I was able to use simple framing lumber and it was pretty cheap — the wood for the project cost just $36, with another $15 for screws (which I’ll have for future projects too). My plan was to build a pretty simple frame screwed into the studs along the back and side walls, then add plywood across the top and simple wood feet at three places along the front. Here’s a mock-up (minus one side wall and the plywood top so you can see the frame):

For supplies, I needed:

(4) 2x4s each 8′ long (I could have used just two 12′ long pieces, but it would have been difficult to get back to the house in our sedan and also I thought shorter lengths would be a lot easier to work with) — $2.56 each
(2) 2x3s each 8′ long — $1.98 each
(1) 4’x8′ piece of plywood (I had them cut it into quarters at Lowes to make transport easier) — $22.17
1 box of 3″ star-slotted screws (read this post to hear more about my undying love for star-slotted screws) — $9.37
1 box of 2 1/2″ pocket hole screws — $5.99

For tools I used:

A circular saw
Table saw (but this isn’t necessary, a circular saw would work fine for all the cuts if needed)
Level
Stud-finder
Drill
Kreg jig (pocket hole drill)

We loaded all the supplies up in the car, rolling down the back window to get the 8′ lengths in:

I sat in the back seat with the plywood.

When we got home, I cut everything down to size outside using my circular saw. That involved cutting each 2×4 down to 69.75″, which is exactly half the length of the 139.5″ wall. My plan was to use two lengths to span the entire wall along the back and then two more to form the front of the frame. I also cut the 2x3s into 20″ lengths to serve as the cross-pieces. Then I used the table saw to trim the cross pieces a bit more to be the exact same size because it can be a little hard to get a precise cut with a circular saw.

Next it was time to start assembling! I enlisted Sam to help me at this point, since the pieces were about to get a bit unwieldy. First we screwed the cross pieces into the back piece of the frame. To keep the cross pieces in place while driving the screws in, we put the cross pieces perpendicular to the wall, placed the back piece at the end of the cross pieces parallel to the wall, and then drove two screws into each cross piece from the back.

The table was in the way a little bit but I just crawled under it to finish the drilling. That gave Murphy a nice vantage point from which to supervise.

Here’s the first back piece complete with cross supports attached:

We repeated the process for the second back piece.

Next it was time to figure out the height for the bench and mark the studs in the back and side walls. For height, we were originally planning to make the top of the whole thing (including the cushion that will eventually go on top) 18″ to match standard chair height. However, that would have meant the back piece went right across the two wall outlets so we had to go up a little bit. Now the top of the bench with cushion will be closer to 24″. That’s pretty high, but it should work fine and it will let the outlets remain usable.

Then we used a studfinder to mark studs all along the back and side walls, putting an “x” on each stud right below where we knew the frame would be sitting.

I pre-set a screw on each end of the frame so that it would be easy to get it positioned, and then Sam held it roughly in place while I drove the first screw in. From there we were able to use a level and slightly pivot the frame until it was exactly level and then I drove in the second screw. Then Sam went down the line drilling two screws into the back piece and sides where we’d marked studs onto the wall.

We repeated this whole process to get the second back piece into place.

Next it was time to attach the front of the frame. However, I knew that I would need to use pocket holes to eventually attach the legs to the front piece, so first I pre-drilled the pocket holes. I planned to put in three legs, one at exactly the halfway mark to support both the left and right pieces of the front of the frame and then one at the midpoint of each section. That meant I needed pocket holes on the inside edge of the front of the frame at the halfway mark of each piece and then the far right on the leftmost piece and far left on the rightmost piece (where the arrows are in the below mock-up).

I used my kreg jig to drill these. If you haven’t used a kreg jig before, Pretty Handy Girl does a good tutorial that I’ve used frequently.

With those drilled, I was ready to attach the front pieces to the frame. I used two star-slotted screws per cross piece and just drilled through the front pieces.

I plan to get a single 12′ board this fall when we get the station wagon back and can transport it (it’s my stepdad’s car and he leaves it with us during the year while he and my mom sail the high seas), so I’m not worried about the screws showing for now since they’ll get covered with a more finished edge eventually. If you want the screws to be invisible you could use pocket holes to attach each cross piece, but those attachments wouldn’t be quite as strong and I want this thing to be as sturdy as possible.

Next it was time to attach the legs. The bottom of the frame is 15 3/8″ off the ground, so I cut 3 pieces of the leftover 2x4s to this length on my table saw (again, you could use a circular saw if you don’t have a table saw). Then it was as simple as positioning them under the frame where I’d pre-drilled the pocket holes and driving a screw into each pocket hole. I used 2.5″ screws.

All these seams between frame and legs will be covered by the 12′ board I’ll put across the front

And with that I was done! It’s so sturdy and comfortable, the perfect place to relax and read a book.

Oh right, one more step: put the plywood top on. We had the plywood cut into quarters at Home Depot to make it easier to transport. Since it was cut from a 4’x8′ piece, that meant each piece was 24″x48″. The bench is 23″ deep, so first I cut an inch off the long edge of each piece. With three pieces placed end-to-end I had a total of 144″ of length (48″ x 3), so I cut one piece down by 4.5″ to make the total length 139.5″ (the length of the bench). Then I just screwed each plywood piece into the frame in a few places (just enough to keep each piece tacked down, no need to go overboard).

Right now I’m not loving the legs, but it will look a lot more finished once I add the front 12′ board this fall — that will hide all the screws along the front, cover the raw edge of the plywood top, hide the seams where the front of the frame meets the legs, and block more of the view of the radiator underneath. The legs feel disproportionately long, but I think with the wide front board added to make the frame look thicker the proportions will improve. I will also stain it once I get the front board. I want to keep it light, but I think some stain will help it feel more polished.

Of course I also need to make the cushions for it. I have a grand plan for how to do this affordably that involves a little creativity, so stay tuned to see whether that turns out to be successful or not! In the meantime, it’s still usable!